Today your child brought home a big cut out of a gingerbread boy(girl) with a planning guide and a note explaining what to do. Please take the weekend to decorate this gingerbread with your child and come up with a disguise for it.
Here is a picture of the note and planning guide:
You can disguise the gingerbread any way you like! 🙂 I have seen some people disguise their gingerbread as a Ninja Turtle, as a scarecrow, as Santa, and so many more! Those are just a few ideas.
Please make sure to send the planning guide and the gingerbread cut-out in disguise back to school on Monday, December 12th. We will use the planning guide to help us complete a narrative writing piece about our gingerbread in disguise.
I am waiting for a few families to send the Kindergarten Goods & Services participation slip back to school. This slip is due by Friday, December 9th (tomorrow). Â If you have lost this slip, please send me an email at dimitrm@dearbornschools.org, giving your consent for your child to get their nails done, receive a temporary tattoo, and have their face painted.
Today I will be sending home a  movie permission slip. This is in preparation for our Polar Express movie day that is coming up. I will also keep this permission slip on file for any other movie days we have throughout the year. Please fill out this slip and return it to school in your child’s green folder as soon as possible.
A paper on how to login for readingeggs.com came home today. These logins are individual to each child. Please keep this paper somewhere safe.
Readingeggs is a great program that helps your child become a better reader.
We have been using this program at school during our Daily 5 literacy block and the children love it! It teaches them letter recognition, letter sounds, letter formation, reading foundational skills, sight words, word family/rhyming words, sentence structure, and much much more!
Please feel free to use this resource whenever you like. The program keeps moving them up levels as they successfully complete lessons. You can use this program on a a tablet or a computer!
Our December Scholastic book order is due on Monday, December 12th.
Scholastic has guaranteed that any order placed by the 12th will be delivered on December 19th.
Anyone looking to buy books as gifts for the holidays, will have their orders before winter break!
In the past, I have left books in the office for parents to pick up in order for it to remain a surprise. Let me know if any of you need me to do this for you!
The note below came home yesterday, December 1st. Please make sure to fill it out and return it  by December 9th.
Dear Parents –
Kindergarten is learning about economic goods and services. This is a difficult concept for the children to understand without them having the hands-on experience. The kindergarten team would like to provide the hands-on experience for the children by creating “Kinder Kash” and providing the children time to “buy” products from our “kinder Store” or “Kinder Kafe” and receive services from our “Kinder Spa.”
The children will rotate between the three areas to participate in each good or service. During the week, the children will be working to earn the “Kinder Kash.” Children can earn “Kinder Kash” for following directions, being a good friend, producing their best work, etc. The children will be responsible for keeping their “Kinder Kash” throughout the week.
The “kinder Store” will sell “kinder-made” products that each class has created; as well as other store bought goods.
The “Kinder Kafe” will sell savory and sweet food items, as well as juice and water.
The “Kinder Spa” will provide nail painting, tattoo application, and face painting services.
The Kindergarten Goods & Services activity will take place on Friday, December 16th at 2:00pm.
Students must return a signed permission slip in order to participate in all activities. Please fill out the slip below, cut it off, and return it in your child’s green folder. All permission slips are due back by Friday, December 9th.
If you misplaced the note, you can print out a copy here:
I cannot believe it is already December! This month is going to go by quickly with all the fun and exciting events we have planned!
This week we started our “Star of the Week” activity. This will run through the end of the year.  I have assigned each child at random to a week throughout the rest of the year. When it is your child’s turn to be the “star,” I will send home a poster on Friday to be completed and returned on Monday. The “star” gets to do special jobs for me and sit with “Gary the Gorilla” in our Reading Hut under the jungle leaves, during Daily 5 and snack time.
Upcoming Events
12/5 Pajama Day! Wear your favorite pajamas, but please no slippers!
12/6 K-2 Family Workshop Night (The first 50 families to turn in participation slips)
12/9 Haigh Spirit Day! Wear your Haigh Shirt or something with an owl
12/12 Scholastic Book Order Due
12/12 – 12/16 Popcorn Sale (Popcorn money due by Thursday. Popcorn delivered on Friday)
12/13 Ugly Sweater Bingo for Books 6 – 7pm in the cafeteria – Hosted by the PTA
12/15 3-5 Family Workshop Night (The first 50 families to turn in participation slips)
12/16 Kindergarten Goods and Services Activity
12/19 – 12/21 Candy Gram Sales ($1 per candy gram)
12/21 Late Start – 9:40am
12/22 PBIS Party – Movie Theater (in school)
12/22 Holiday Party (more information coming home soon)
12/23 Pancake Breakfast & Polar Express Day – Wear Pajamas (more information coming home soon)
12/23 – 1/8 Winter Break
1/9 BACK TO SCHOOL!
Agenda for the Week
Letters: This week we focused on the letters Ll and Pp. We talked about the sounds they make, brainstormed things that begin with each letter, and spent time practicing the proper formation of each letter. These letters will show up on next week’s homework for a handwriting review.
Reading/Writing: We wrote about a melted snowman and had to come up with reasons why he melted. Many of the children thought of funny answers such as, the snowman melted because he was in a hot tub, or the snowman melted because he had a fever. I love seeing the kids get creative with our assignments.
We also worked on another R.A.N strategy about Penguins. We really focused on our informational writing and tried to include facts about penguins as well as providing a sentence to wrap up the paper (summary sentence). The children enjoyed sharing what they think they knew about penguins and then researching as a whole class to find out new information and also to confirm the facts we thought we knew.
We also wrote about the “Star of the Week” and created a book for the star to take home! This week Logan was the “star!” We learned that he likes to golf and play with trains. We also learned that he loves to color and his favorite colors are red, orange, green, blue, and purple (all the colors of the rainbow). When Logan grows up he wants to be a scientist.
Please continue to have your child practice writing at home. Here is what I am looking for in class:
Uppercase to start the sentence
End punctuation (. ! ?)
Finger spaces between words
Does the sentence make sense? Are the words in the correct order?
Does the picture match the words?
Did you stretch your sentence? (Is there a noun, adjective, and verb?)
Math: This week for math we reviewed sequencing numbers as well as reviewing addition. This week we focused more on how to add using counters and our fingers. Â The children played a fun game with a partner where they had to roll two dice and add the numbers together, look for the number on a gingerbread man and cross it off. The person with the most numbers crossed off, wins the game. The children loved this. This game is very similar to the dice math game they played in October called Monster Mash.
Please continue to practice counting by 1’s, 5’s, and 10’s to 100 with your child at home. Also practice counting to 30 by 2’s (2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20…..). Other activities you can practice at home are using tally marks to count objects, identifying 2D/3D shapes around the house of community, and really making sure your child has good one-to-one correspondence when counting (this means that they touch each object as they are counting and count all objects correctly).
Social Studies: We continued learning about the concept of needs and wants. This week we did a cut and paste activity where the children had to identify what the picture was and if it was showing a need or a want. Then they had to glue the picture in the correct column on a t-chart.
Science: We continue to learn about push and pull. The children completed a cut and paste T-chart activity, where they had to cut out pictures of objects being pushed and pulled and sort them on the T-chart under the words “push” and “pull.”
Housekeeping Items:
Please make sure reading books are placed back in the green book pouches each night and returned to school every morning.
Please make sure to record the reading that you do with your child each night on the reading log in the homework. Reading every night is a very important part of your child’s learning.
The easiest way to get a hold of me during the day is through my email at dimitrm@dearbornschools.org. If the children are working independently on a task, I can easily check my email and send a quick reply.
Please make sure to empty the green folders each night! It is very difficult and time consuming to locate homework or important notes when the folder is full of papers from the day before.
WOW! It was a very busy week. The children had a great time at the book fair and enjoyed their first “late start” day!
Next week is a short week! There will be no homework and no book pouches sent home next week.
A note about book pouches —
Moving forward, I will give the children 2 – 3 books in their book pouches at the beginning of the week to read for the rest of the week. Trying to give new books every Monday and Wednesday was just too time consuming and using up too many of the books in the book room. Soon, we would run out of books that the children haven’t read if I continue sending new books every Monday and Wednesday. I also want to have time throughout the week to focus small group instruction on skills the children need help with rather than just focusing on getting the books passed out. Thank you for your understanding and support as we move forward with our instruction!
Thank you to everyone that came out to support our Kindergarten group in their performance of the “The First Thanksgiving.” I really appreciate all the parents who donated cookies for our refreshments after the play!
Here is a group shot from our play:
We also got together with our 5th grade buddies from Mrs. Niner’s class and the children worked together to write a mini book! We have not finished the books yet, but when we do, they will come home for you to enjoy!
Here are some pictures from our writing time with our 5th grade buddies:
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Upcoming Events
11/22 Mad Science Assembly
11/23 – 11/25 NO SCHOOL! Happy Thanksgiving!
11/30 PBIS Celebration – Jazz Band
Agenda for the Week
Letters: This week we focused on the letters Jj and Qq. We talked about the sounds they make, brainstormed things that begin with each letter, and spent time practicing the proper formation of each letter. These letters will show up on next week’s homework for a handwriting review.
Reading/Writing: We reviewed nouns, verbs, and adjectives. We continue to stretch our sentences by adding more details through the use of describing the noun (the adjective) and telling what the noun is doing (the verb). Some of the children are even working on stretching their sentence to tell where the noun is (the setting).
During Daily 5 this week, the children received a writing journal. We learned how to turn to the correct page in the journal and we reviewed that we read and write from left to right, top to bottom, line to line. The children learned that they could go back and write in their journal on the same page as a previous day and add more to their story rather than having to start a new story each day. The children loved their writing journals and are doing well with their writing.
The children also got writing binders this week. There are many resources for the children to use to help them with their writing in the front section called “tools.” Then we file their writing in the binder for each genre we are working on. The genres are informational, narrative, and opinion writing.
Here are some pictures from our writing block today:
Please continue to have your child practice writing at home. Here is what I am looking for in class:
Uppercase to start the sentence
End punctuation (. ! ?)
Finger spaces between words
Does the sentence make sense? Are the words in the correct order?
Does the picture match the words?
Did you stretch your sentence? (Is there a noun, adjective, and verb?)
Math: This week for math we reviewed sequencing numbers. The children know that sequence means to put in order. Most of the children are great and ordering numbers 0 – 10, but are struggling with numbers 11 – 20 and beyond.
Here is a video that helps the children to better understand numbers in the teens:
We also practiced more of our patterning using Thanksgiving pictures to cut and glue the pictures in the correct pattern sequence.
Please continue to practice counting by 1’s, 5’s, and 10’s to 100 with your child at home. Also practice counting to 30 by 2’s (2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20…..). Other activities you can practice at home are using tally marks to count objects, identifying 2D/3D shapes around the house of community, and really making sure your child has good one-to-one correspondence when counting (this means that they touch each object as they are counting and count all objects correctly).
I introduced the concept of subtraction, just to give them a little taste of what “take away” means. Both addition and subtraction will be on the NWEA test in January, so I want them to have some exposure to both before they take the test again.
Here is an subtraction video you can watch with your child to help reinforce the skill of “taking away:”
We will continue on practicing our addition in the weeks to come! The children will learn how to use counters to add groups together, use their fingers to find the sum, and how to use the “counting on” method to find the sum. This method works by having the children put the larger number in their head and the smaller number on their fingers. Then they say, “I’ve got 5 in my head and three on my hands… then they say 5 for the group in their head and then count up from 5 on their fingers, 6, 7, 8.”
Here is another video about addition and subtraction:
Social Studies: We continued learning about the concept of needs and wants. We watched a short video about what a need and a want is. Next week we will do a cut and paste activity where the children have to identify what the picture was and if it was showing a need or a want. Then they will glue the picture in the correct column on a t-chart.
Science: I introduced the concept of push and pull with a simple worksheet where the children had to identify if the picture was showing push or pull and then write the word underneath. We did this together as a class and the children did well.
Housekeeping Items:
Please make sure to record the reading that you do with your child each night on the reading log in the homework.
The easiest way to get a hold of me during the day is through my email at dimitrm@dearbornschools.org. If the children are working independently on a task, I can easily check my email and send a quick reply.
If you did not turn in the paper plate today, please make sure to turn it in tomorrow. We will be working on the other components to the “thankful turkey” today and finishing them up tomorrow.
Thank you for your help in getting this project completed!
All reminder notes have been sent home (stapled inside your child’s green folder) regarding your day and time of conference. If you have a question regarding conferences, please email me at dimitrm@dearbornschools.org
Upcoming Events
11/7 – 11/18 Yogurtopia Can Food Drive
11/14 Scholastic Book Order Due
11/14 – 11/18 School Scholastic Book Fair (Our class will go to the book fair on 11/14 [send money to school with your child on this day OR meet us in the media center at 12:00pm] – Family Night on the 17th)
11/16 Late Start – 9:40am
11/16 Parent/Teacher ConferencesÂ
11/17 Parent/Teacher Conferences
11/18 Picture Re-Take Day
11/18Â Kindergarten Thanksgiving Play & Refreshments
11/22 Mad Science Assembly
11/23 – 11/25 NO SCHOOL! Happy Thanksgiving!
11/30 PBIS Celebration – Jazz Band
Agenda for the Week
Letters: This week we focused on the letters Ii and Rr. We talked about the sounds they make, brainstormed things that begin with each letter, and spent time practicing the proper formation of each letter. These letters will show up on next week’s homework for a handwriting review.
Reading/Writing: Our focus this week was on learning what an adjective is and identifying it in our writing. We learned that an adjective is a describing word. Here is the video we sing in class to help us remember what are adjectives:
We are still working on our writing through stretching our words and writing down the sounds that we hear. I am looking for the children to write simple sentences that may look like this: “I see a cat.” Now that we have learned that verbs are actions words, I have been asking the children to stretch their sentences to add more detail and tell me what action the noun is doing. Using the example above, I am looking for them to write a sentence similar to this: “I see a cat chasing a mouse.” OR “I see a cat sleeping.” Since we have learned that an adjective describes the noun, I will be looking for adjectives in their writing. Using the example above, a sentence using noun, verb, and adjective may look like this: “I see a black cat sleeping.” For those children that can stretch their sentence a little bit further, I ask them to include the “where” in their sentence. Where is the cat sleeping? Using the above example, the sentence may look like this: “I see a black cat sleeping in my bed.”
Please continue to have your child practice writing at home. Here is what I am looking for in class:
Uppercase to start the sentence
End punctuation (. ! ?)
Finger spaces between words
Does the sentence make sense? Are the words in the correct order?
Does the picture match the words?
Did you stretch your sentence? (Is there a noun, adjective, and verb?)
Math: We played a fun game where the children had to order numbers on a game board with small cards. The first person to complete a row with the numbers in order takes those cards off the board and adds those cards to their pile. The player with the most cards at the end of the game wins. Â We continue to work on ordering numbers and filling in missing numbers in a sequence. The children are having a little bit of a hard time understanding which number to fill in the blank with and which number comes before a given number. They are pretty good at understanding which number comes after a given number, but they struggle with identifying which number comes before.
Please continue to practice counting by 1’s, 5’s, and 10’s to 100 with your child at home. Also practice counting to 30 by 2’s (2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20…..). Other activities you can practice at home are using tally marks to count objects, identifying 2D/3D shapes around the house of community, and really making sure your child has good one-to-one correspondence when counting (this means that they touch each object as they are counting and count all objects correctly).
I continued playing with the concept of addition this week. The children love playing the addition games on the Promethean board which help the children learn how to add in a fun and easy format. Â I explained addition to the children by telling them that we were going to count how many items were in the first set (group) and how many items were in the second set and then count how many we have all together and that is our answer. We learned how to identify a plus sign and the equals sign. We talked about how the numbers are getting bigger when we add them together. We will continue learning this concept for the rest of the year, so if your child feels a little uncomfortable with the material, we have lots more learning opportunities coming up!
Social Studies: I introduced the concept of needs and wants. We began discussing the difference between things we need and things we want. This can be a little difficult for this age group to grasp, but we will be working on this social studies unit until January, so the children will have plenty of practice with it. We will use picture sorts and videos to help the children understand the difference between these two terms.
Science: We talked about what a scientist is and things that they do. We had a cute little book that we completed on Friday that told what a scientist does. There were lots of big words in this book and the children had fun discussing each of the words and learning what they mean. Some of these things that scientists do we realized we do all throughout the day during other subjects. The children are learning that they can be a scientist all the time and not just during a science experiment!
Housekeeping Items:
Please make sure to record the reading that you do with your child each night on the reading log in the homework.
The easiest way to get ahold of me during the day is through my email at dimitrm@dearbornschools.org. If the children are working independently on a task, I can easily check my email and send a quick reply.
Please make sure to empty the green folders each night! It is very difficult and time consuming to locate homework or important notes when the folder is full of papers from the day before.
